The conversation about the scariest movies of all time is a spirited one despite the top spots on anyone’s list being routinely occupied by Jaws, The Exorcist, Alien, The Thing, and the like – not that there’s anything wrong with this. The reasons that’s the case are rather evident when looking at each film’s subject matter.
They all deal with primal fears we all can relate to – fears of the unknown, isolation, the dark, the deep, the supernatural, the preternatural, paranoia, fear of people, fear of your surroundings, monsters both giant and ugly, loss of control, of identity, and even of death itself.
Ultimately, however, one ties them all together – with the possible exception of Jaws. That’s the fear a malevolent parasitic entity or an alien virus could invade you bodily and either take over, harm you physically, hold you hostage mentally and spiritually, or some nightmarish combo of the three.
The Exorcist is the spiritual and religious version of that scenario; The Thing and Alien are Cronenbergian variations on the physical version commonly known as body horror. They’re genetically similar yet different – two sides of the same coin, yin-and-yang, etc. – but boil down to the same essence.
Another thing that ties these films together and gives them their perpetual ick factor is age – not their ages in decades but the ages their devotees were when they made first contact with them. Most of us of a certain era who have held onto these movies as experiences saw them on TV or tape or in theaters too young.
Sometimes, before seeing them in their entirety, we were primed by a clip, trailer, or TV spot that showed ‘the good stuff’ to spur the target audiences of teens, genre enthusiasts, and weirdos with a video store to go to their local multiplex.
(Side note: every suburban area and in some cases every town had the latter guy. And if he didn’t own a video store, he ran a comic shop. Chances are you once met someone like that or know the type.)
Those demos would show up in varying numbers, but not everything they saw became a historic staple that’s discussed and debated for years to come. A lot of the time something would either be rediscovered on home video (to the delight of the weirdo with the store) or capture the public’s imagination but drop off shortly after.
Collecting all that exposition, no film better exemplifies these shared phenomena and checks more boxes along the way on my spooky chit list than 1993’s Fire In the Sky. The adaptation of the story and trauma of famed abductee Travis Walton (played by DB Sweeney), for me, is one of the scariest movies ever made.
For one thing, it has adept technical aspects in cinematography, lighting, creature effects, sets, and performances. Everything is pitch perfect, but what matters most is how those elements are utilized to serve the narrative, which has another crucial factor going for it.
Like The Exorcist and other films based on the paranormal or loosely in true crime like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Fire In the Sky uses the tagline “Based on a true story” and plays Walton’s tale completely straight. You are left feeling like a UFO abduction – and the royally invasive probing that follows – can happen.
Whether or not Walton’s account is a hoax is irrelevant to a visceral experience independent of facts and counterpoints. Those five little words have us and the inner fragment of childlike curiosity that wants to believe sutured to the ordeal.
(It’s no wonder then how similarly themed shows like The X-Files were so popular. They didn’t win the ratings in a vacuum.)
Then there is the all-important storytelling itself, past all the promotional tricks and runaway imagination. The plot is brilliantly executed in a way that strings you along the right amount and doesn’t give too much away too soon. It’s a slow-burn mystery guided by the performances of Robert Patrick and James Garner in turns many think they still don’t get enough credit for.
When Travis turns up, horrified and disoriented, the specifics of what he went through are opaque. The script allows him time to reintegrate and become a local celebrity, who is sought for autographs by kids and looked at as an oddball by everyone else. It’s all mundane with a few quick flashbacks until a breakdown leads to a hospital trip where all is revealed.
The big scene of Martian medical malpractice is saved for the climax, and the payoff is truly terrifying. The aliens and their cavernous lab are bizarre, but Sweeney screaming his head off at being stripped and violated is unforgettable by itself. It’s all the film needs to sell its horrors.
I still remember what it was like to see the TV spots for Fire In the Sky in the evenings and late afternoons before it came out. I was a little kid who got supremely freaked out by DB Sweeney bathed in white light and covered by a suffocating silk sheet with the extras of goo and an apparatus stuck to his face.
(Alex DeLarge in Clockwork Orange thought he had it bad. Bratchny, please!)
Watching Fire years later, I can say it did not disappoint and surely isn’t guilty of false advertising. It delivers to this day exactly what the trailer promises in glimpses. I just wish it entered the chat more often when discussing the movies that scared us.
NEXT: ‘Ultraman: Rising’ Review – Ultra Family Matters